After 17 years with the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Kevin McHale era ended not with a bang but a tweet.

Forward Kevin Love said in an early-morning posting on Twitter that McHale will not return as coach.

"Today is a sad day," Love tweeted. "Kevin McHale will NOT be back as head coach next season."

New Wolves president of basketball operations David Kahn announced the same today at a Target Center press conference, but said, "I have no candidate lined up" to replace McHale and would focus on that after the draft next week. Kahn said he received one call already today, but would not reveal the caller.

Kahn said he felt that the Timberwolves needed to make a change.

"I just felt that, the more I went through the process, there would be some challenges that would be difficult to surmount," Kahn said.

Kahn declined to get into specifics about why he decided to make the change, but was extremely complimentary to McHale, calling him "a great man who did some great things here, some really remarkable things here, and he deserves to be treated with respect."

Kahn acknowledged the strong relationship McHale had with the players, and his communication skills with them, and said he would look for a candidate who also could have a positive rapport with his team.

"I was more shocked, disappointed, hurt," Timberwolves center Al Jefferson said of the decision to remove McHale.

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"But at the same time, I understand that it's a business. I talked to David before this decision was made, and I knew he had a decision to make. I knew at the end of the day he was going to do what's best for us and the team. I just have to accept it and move on."

Jefferson said McHale phoned him with the news Tuesday night.

"Everybody knows this is a business," Jefferson said. "We know right now we've got to let Mac go. We've got to put Mac out of our heads right now."

As for Love tweeting the news before it was announced, Kahn brushed it off, saying today's world is a different one, and "I don't think it's a big deal."

McHale, 51, went 20-43 this season after replacing the fired Randy Wittman as coach.

Before that, McHale spent 14 seasons as the team's vice president of basketball operations, highlighted by the 1995 drafting of Kevin Garnett, who led the team to the Western Conference finals in 2003-04.

There were many more lowlights, however, including draft-day swaps of Ray Allen for Stephon Marbury in 1996 and Brandon Roy for Randy Foye in 2006 and first-round selections such as William Avery in 1999, Ndudi Ebi in 2003 and Rashad McCants in 2005.

"I would like to thank Kevin McHale for his many years of service to the Timberwolves organization," Wolves owner Glen Taylor said in a statement. "When we hired David Kahn as our President of Basketball Operations, I gave him my full support to make an evaluation and decision regarding our coaching situation. I know that David made a careful analysis and this decision was made with the best interests of the Minnesota Timberwolves in mind. I will be forever grateful for the work Kevin did in returning to his home state and assembling a team that made eight straight playoff appearances. Kevin brought an enormous amount of basketball talent and passion to our organization and I wish him nothing but the best."

Kahn, hired May 21, promised during his introductory press conference to treat McHale with respect but acknowledged during a couple of recent media breakfasts that a large portion of the Wolves' fan base had a hard time separating McHale the coach from McHale the former front-office man.

In the end, that prevailing sense of negativity might have convinced Kahn that the only way for the organization to move forward was to do so without McHale.

McHale's departure comes just eight days before the NBA draft, in which the Wolves own three first-round selections.

That could impact the search for a successor, although former Toronto Raptors coach Sam Mitchell, an ex-Wolves player well known to owner Glen Taylor, is a likely contender.

The other top available candidates are former San Antonio Spurs coach Avery Johnson and former New York Knicks and Houston Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy.